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Working with Subject Matter Experts | Otter.ai

Working with Subject Matter Experts

Shannon Tipton1h 2min

Shannon Tipton

00:00

In here

Shannon Tipton

00:04

and there

Shannon Tipton

00:06

we are all right. Well, Happy Friday. Congratulations. In order for dawn, and if you have a something, something that you're celebrating, let us know. We'd love to celebrate with you, too. And also, if you are new to the coffee chat, or if you haven't been here for a while, go ahead and put your name and share where you're from in the chat itself, so we can give you the warm welcome that you deserve. And as always, I'm Shannon Tipton, owner of learning rebels here, moderating these crazy conversations with everybody. Always a fun time. And today we are talking about subject matter experts and working with subject matter experts. And this week I put together, admittedly a little late this week, I put together a checklist that we can use for subject matter experts to help us be a little bit more empathetic in their world, you know, and that's Really what we're going to talk about today and Andrew contract for 80 hours doing learning needs assessment. That's fabulous. Congratulations on that. Yeah, Chris, welcome. Chris. Welcome Jennifer. So me saying that it's 70 out here. You're like, those are winter temperatures out in Florida, Seattle. Let's see. Oh Brandon from Alaska, awesome. Thank you for joining us today. Yes. Welcome everybody. And as I said, looking forward to having this particular conversation. We haven't talked about working with subject matter experts in a while, and I think it's always a good topic to revisit. And the reason that this kind of pinged in my head was because I've been working on a contract myself that requires multiple subject matter experts and some of the members of the team. You know, as always, you know, get driven crazy by working with subject matter experts, and it's not because they're difficult to work with. Some maybe, but we all know that subject matter experts have a head full of knowledge, and they think everybody should also have a head full of knowledge. And sometimes it's difficult, you know, to try to work with them to understand that people just need to know what they need to know in order to do the thing right, and that, at times, is a difficult conversation to have. It's a difficult meeting of mine sometimes, you know, but we could do it, and we've done it, and I'm sure that all of you out there, you know, have great tips, tricks, experiences that you can share, working with some of your favorite subject matter experts, and some of us who have been around the block a time or two or 30, if We're counting, or even if we're not counting, you know, has, has had those sorts of experiences, you know. So first off, I've, I'd like to open it up to everyone. And first let me reiterate the rules, that there are no rules, because this is a learning rebels discussion, right? And the way this works is feel free to open up your microphone and speak what's on your mind. We we welcome openness. If you can't open up your mic because you've got noise happening around you, please be sure to share your thoughts in the chat. The same thing goes for video. I'm not a person who says you have to turn on your video, because I understand that things happen in life, who knows what's happening around you, behind you, or what have you. But if you are worried because you're not having a good hair day or what you're wearing, you know you don't like what you're wearing, believe me, this is not the place to worry about that. You could go to some of the past videos and see my hair and what I've been wearing or whatever, and you'll know that you are welcome. So please feel free to turn on your video if you wish. So that being said, Who would like to kick this off? I would love to know what if any of you has a favorite? Great subject matter expert story that you would like to share that maybe you learned from, that gave you that moment of, oh, I it changed the way I thought about working with subject matter experts. Or maybe it was just funny, you know, maybe there was a big round of miscommunication that you learned from. So I would love to know if somebody's got a story that they would like to share. First off, before we start getting into the nitty gritty,

Connie

05:29

I'll share one. But this is I always almost feel like it's a fake story, because it's just so perfect kind of thing where, you know, most SMEs that you work with. I also have one where I felt bullied, so I understand. So it's not always perfect in my life, that's for sure, but one of the SMEs that I work with, I mean, we just really click as two people, and we have each other's cell phone and stuff like that. We don't really chat back and forth and accept once in great while when we need to. But I get her, she gets me, and she, you know, like I was this project I'm working on with her right now. Getting everything ready for her review or for her team's review was taking longer than I had expected, and I kept pushing it out, and I felt so bad. I hate to do that with deadlines, right? Makes you feel terrible, like you're just incompetent. And she said, Connie, I have zero concerns, zero. And that just really made me feel good. Yeah, you know, she trust me, she I mean, if she has changes or something, that's great. No problem. In fact, you know, I expect that. But the last project I had worked on for she said, my team loves what you did. Oh, and it's just, it's nice when you have that kind of relationship. But like I said, I've also had one where I was bullied for a couple years. So those aren't so fun.

Shannon Tipton

06:56

Those aren't so fun. So what do you think the the what was the linchpin or the trigger point, if you will, that made that relationship so good.

Connie

07:11

I think some of it, to be honest, is personality. We really do click as people or to individuals. And worse, she's younger than me, but not, not a significant amount, but I don't know, age really doesn't matter to me. Either way, I can have great relationships with very young and very old. Doesn't really matter. So, um, I really think that a lot of it is we just look at the work in the same way, which makes the relationship much easier. And she used to be a teacher, and now I've I've never actually been a teacher, but I think we think in similar ways, and that does make it a lot easier. So that's why I feel like it's kind of fake. Because really, when you're just, yeah, I'm Empath and so is she so we're both really connected and able to really understand what each other is saying and what we want. So I

Shannon Tipton

08:10

like that, and it really is. There's a lot of active listening involved here, isn't there? Yeah, Andrew,

Andrew

08:21

I worked with a university professor on some data analytics training, and we were expressing that we wanted to create online training, and he says, Oh, I've already done it for you, which meant that he had recorded all of his lectures, right? All semester, the entire semester's worth of lectures were online.

Shannon Tipton

08:42

Words that make every trainer go,

Andrew

08:44

Oh, we're like,

Andrew

08:47

thank you. We don't actually need to do interviews. We've got all your content. But once we explained what it was we were doing, he understood. But it was so fun. It was like, different worlds and like, Oh, okay. It's like, my content, it's all online. You're looking for online training. We're like, yes, yes, it is online. So you're right. Here's a great client who's excellent to work with as is fun, but it was just one of those funny stories. You're like, yeah, no,

Shannon Tipton

09:22

I love that response. Though it's online,

Shannon Tipton

09:27

your work is done pretty good.

Shannon Tipton

09:29

Got you there? Well, you know? And I think it's, you know, sometimes you're dealing with serious topics. I get it, you know, but I think still an element of fun has to be incorporated into this somehow, you know, in order to bridge a gap, right, especially if this is somebody that you don't work with at all, or rarely, you know. Know? Because there's that whole getting to know you period, you know? And so I put the checklist in the chat for those of you who didn't get a chance to download it in the email yesterday or in the reminder email that went out this morning. So there it is for you. And I think what, where I would like to start is, where do you start? You know? So when you are you're starting a new project, and, you know, you've got subject matter experts that you have to work with, you know, what's your first step? Who would like to open up that line of topic, you know, what's your first step when dealing with a subject matter expert who you really don't know?

Connie

10:54

Well, I think it's the basics of a relationship. You know, what do you do when you want to when you start meeting and networking? I mean, you just start chatting with them, get it, get to know them a little bit, ask them some questions about their life, and just get a little rapport going. If nothing else, start there, at least that's what I feel.

Shannon Tipton

11:15

I agree with you. What else do you guys think

Leslie

11:20

I always ask the SME what they're thinking about in terms of our audience, you know, What experiences have they had with them? Have they run into any situations that they'd like to have cleared up so they can do their job better? You know? If it's just a conversation, let's just sit down at coffee and talk like that for a minute. No note taking, you know, just get to know each other, like you said, yeah,

Shannon Tipton

11:43

yeah, yeah. I can remember your people, right? Humans, with humans. You know, your brain, their brain. You know you're trying to, you're trying to build a bridge. So I think is, is really what we're trying to do when we're kicking off these conversations. How many of you do A a let's get to know each other kick off before the formal kickoff. Does anybody do that in is that something worth considering? What are your thoughts about doing something like that? I think

Jason

12:23

it depends on the SMEs that you have. The ones in my company, they know they just want to check the box and get it done. Okay, I even go in, like I might build in, ask them some questions like, Well, how long have you been doing this? What is your experience things like that? But the get to know you type longer conversations now they just want to give me their information and move on to the rest of their projects, because I'm a non billable person, and their time with me goes against their utilization. So, right?

Shannon Tipton

12:55

Well, and I think that goes to so many times we've said this about so many different topics, which is understanding your audience. You know, if you guys subject matter experts like Jason, who are just, you know, in and out, they're just like, I don't have the time for this. I charge by the hour, or what have you, well, then that's a whole different animal, isn't it? And there might be opportunities to try to weave in relationship building at the very beginning, if these are people that you know and have worked with in the past, and maybe that's not so important. If this is a new project in a new area of the business, then maybe it becomes a little bit more important. So I think it's about gaging where you are and who you're working with. And I see Erica and I see Elizabeth, I'll go to Erica first, because I think you were first. So go ahead, Erica.

Erica

13:57

Hello. I'm currently working on a project with a new SME, and I'm actually very, very excited about this project. One of the things that we have going on in our particular workflow in our group is that we unfortunately have a bit of a bifurcated unit that sits under the term training, which means that our sister group handles all the initial like conversations, and they're the ones who will be given that opportunity to maybe as looking at the checklist, any of maybe that before meeting stuff. And then my team, the developers, we get kind of thrown in when somebody else thinks we should now be a part of it. And one of the things that has happened on this particular project is that it became clear to me that the person on my sister team didn't understand how to try to gather important information. And I felt like there were a lot of gaps, and I was able to ask this individual, you know, could we have a meeting where we can both sit with the subject matter expert? And luckily, my peer stayed quiet, and I then, did, you know, it isn't exactly the third bullet point of draft the open ended questions to gather stories and insights, per se, Shannon, but it was definitely like, I'm here to learn more, tell me more. And I was really focused on making sure that this me understood that I wanted to truly understand what the pain point was that brought them to the point that they submitted this intake, and then really, what is the pain point as far as the reason behind the content that they wanted developed? And I think that what I'm sharing is basically like, also, keep in mind that depending on how your workflow goes and where you sometimes maybe get dropped in at weird points. It's important to advocate and remembering ourselves as not order takers, but you know that we're consultative and to do the work so that if you're feeling like something's kind of funny or off or goofy, and you don't feel like you have good information to, you know, warmly and congenially, you know, invite to see if you can have basically, you know, I did a needs analysis because the person who thought they did a needs analysis missed the mark. And so language around why I was doing it again was important. You know, there were some concerns that the Smee and the overall project sponsor was having, because my team has a new process, and unfortunately, somebody was holding things too close to the vest, which was impacting there's always one there. There's always somebody. Trust is really important here, too. And as soon as I try to, like, use vulnerable language without making my peer look bad,

Shannon Tipton

17:13

you know, it really opened up like this. It just there was, you could just see, like there was this huge sense of relief. And then there was comprehension and understanding. Oh, okay, we totally get that. Yeah, we've done that tune. You know, sometimes holding things super close to the cuff also inadvertently creates that us versus them, that that Shannon had talked about inside of the post, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I, and those conversations about pain points are really important. It's I understand that you're human and that you have issues and there are things happening around you. So I really want to understand that as we move forward, and understand what, why you're here to start with, there's a whole lot of it's almost like being in a relationship, isn't it? You know, it's understanding, you know where that other person is coming from before you try to tackle some of the issues that might be on the table. So, Elizabeth, you're on mute.

Elizabeth

18:16

All right, sorry. You think I've never been on a zoom call before.

Shannon Tipton

18:21

We got to find one person to stamp that part of the bingo card. You're that person today. I

Elizabeth

18:26

even run, run zoom, and I still when it's my turn to talk, I'm not sure I came into this position from teaching a classroom, and I work as a workforce development coordinator, and it's a brand new thing. It's grant funded for for the Department of Health throughout the entire state of Florida. And so when I came in, people were like, so what do you do? Well, I'm not sure. So I just set up appointments with all the people who had some sort of management or supervisory

Elizabeth

19:08

and I said I'd

Elizabeth

19:10

like to have a short chat with you, find out ways that I can help you, and you could see them physically relax when I said that, instead of saying what I need from you is, how can I help you? And so I learned a lot of some of the things, the little things that people here wanted, because they've never had anybody in a trainer position here in terms of, I'm not medical background. I It's Department of Health, but I am not from the medical field. I'm learning about community health, which is way different than just going to a doctor in that but it helped me to develop some a series of training tips for the little things that people. People wanted to know. And those have become very popular. I send them out once or twice a week. It can be about any any subject. It can be what to do on a PowerPoint. I need them to be very short, pithy, you know, brief, because everybody here does two or three or 10 jobs, and so they don't have time to sit down and read along anything they don't have time to go to an attachment and look at that. And so it has. I've been here now about almost a year and a half, and we've started looking at personalities, and from there, we're going to be going into how we can use understanding personalities to teamwork, and I'm getting more and more feedback. So what I've learned from this process is go in with a heart of service to them. Not here's the information I need from you, but service to you. Find out what kinds of things in an ideal world they would like to know what kinds of things might help their job, and then just throw things out there until you find those things that they latch on to and then use those to build the rest of the program. So I'm working on leadership development and all that kind of stuff that are challenges in the workforce, but it's been a challenge because I I didn't have a lot of, you know, any kind of health department thing. I'd done trainings before in real estate and teaching high school and in following the legislature when I lived in Nevada. But this was a totally new thing, and it's been quite interesting, and I've learned a lot.

Shannon Tipton

21:44

That's awesome. I love that. And I think that's one of the, you know, ad hoc bonuses, isn't it? Of what we do is that we get to learn and discover a lot of new things that we hadn't known about before, you know, and digging deeper into that. And I think it is an interesting conversation to have. And you bring up a good point, Elizabeth, about helping subject matter experts understand the training process and as and I'm reading this, you know, in here, Rhonda Rhoda, I'm sorry, specifically, you know, trouble with your subject matter experts understanding how long it takes to create a class, you know. So I think that is also the right that happens. You know, where it's here. Here is my PowerPoint dump. Now, turn that into something and, oh, by the way, turn that into something tomorrow,

Elizabeth

22:48

right? I had to completely redo the orientation. And having gone through that orientation and then finding out that was going to be my first project, was like, okay, good,

Shannon Tipton

23:00

oh, right, right, right,

Elizabeth

23:04

something I'm familiar with. Okay, yeah, and, but we only hire one or two people at a time, and so it's not like I have a huge, big class to do ever. There's 66 people that work here, but we're also working on some community outreach type things. So it's, what do the public need? What do those kinds of things? How are those going to impact the kinds of programs that we develop? So it's been, it's been very good, and I noticed there the subject matter expert trust. I have a project right now with our emergency and planning consultant and she, we were talking about, how are we going to get people to understand what they need to do in an emergency if there's a chemical release and, you know, all that kind of stuff and and because we have to drill some of these now, the state has said, No, every five years isn't enough. You're going to do it every year, right? And I suggested that we look at branching scenarios. And she had no idea what I was talking about. And so I'm, I'm, I want to work up a mock up of just one doing that for her. And I think

Shannon Tipton

24:26

that's a great point. Yeah, right. I think that's a great point in helping the subject matter expert understand what it is that we do, right? Because I think that that's the part that if we look our, if we look at ourselves in the mirror, and part of that, part of that is addressing the checklist, then it's, it's about, how can we help the subject matter expert do what they do best, right? Because I think that is one of the main roles that. We have, which is to bring out, bring out the knowledge, find the knowledge, expose it, and then help the subject matter expert, bring those thoughts together in a cohesive way. You know, that makes training impactful for the organization, and that means in a lot of times, we've got to step back and go, Well, really? Shannon, how good are your listening skills, right? How good are your interviewing skills, you know? How good are your observational skills, you know? So, so I am working on this project right now. I have this client that is not in state, and so I have to travel to them regularly. And one of the things you've heard me say this before is that I I've always considered myself the queen of the hallway meeting. You know, it's like, I will find a way. And as I'm in this office, I keep crossing paths with the CEO. And he's like, Do you live here now? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I do. I actually have a bed underneath that desk over there, and he's like, Well, it's good to see you around here, you know. So it's that's some of the things that it's not necessarily a sit down conversation. It is awareness. You know that you are trying to find out everything that you can in whatever way you can, you know, in order to get the information you need, in order to do the job that you've been tasked to do, you know. So I let me ask you this now, is where do you think so now we know where the subject matter experts struggle. So subject matter experts struggle is that this is not their only job. They've got a day job, right? And so working with you is extra and they've got other things to do. And so now, how can we make that process easier for the subject matter expert, and then, so if we make the process easier for the subject matter expert, that in turn makes the process easier for us, right? So what sort of tips do you have about making the process easier overall? What sort of shortcuts Do you have? Tips? Pro Tips? Do you have Erica?

Erica

27:48

One of the best tips that I acquired when I took a it's called training with short Sims, and it was hosted by Allen Academy, and Clark Aldrich was the facilitator, and he did a lot of DOD contract work. And so Clark talked to us about, when you have your time with your SME, you're you're going to probably have only a little bit of time, just like you just teed up Shannon. And so really being able to get to the point. And the point is, what do you need people to do, to do their jobs better, right? So what's happening in current state? This is for us, what do we what do we need to help them do, to change to future states so that they're doing their jobs better? So when we can approach a SME, approach them and ask them about what are the things that you see like as the constant like issues or slip ups or trip UPS when you're noticing the you know your workforce doing their work. So for example, when I had to build a safety training and I asked one of our regional safety experts. And I was like, So what do you constantly see, and what's like a constant issue for your different teams out in the field, when it comes to believe it was hand safety, might have been something else, and you know, just being able to get that and to get them honed in and focuses like, oh, okay, so what are all the things that people screw up on? And they might sound like that. They're, they're, you know, complaining, right? Like you think, oh, Erica, you're opening up this tap where all they're going to do is just tell you all these problems. Yes, because we can build training around the problems. If we know what the problems are that they're experiencing, then we can help them to make sure that any of the content that we've acquired from them, or how we want to acquire the solutions is is anchored to very specific and real world things that are going on, and that's like that fundamentally changed my way of thinking. And how I deal with SMEs, right, right, exactly. And I think that that's a great point. Anybody want to add to that?

Shannon Tipton

30:11

I'm looking in the chat. There's a lot of conversation in the chat so that so my pause is me reading what, what you all are sharing here, and I love what you're sharing. And a lot of it goes back to what Erica is saying, which is so Noel, you know, I show a graphic of Bloom's taxonomy to the subject matter expert, and point that, you know, what is it that you want to do differently, you know? And I think that that's a that's a great question to ask. I don't normally pull out Bloom's taxonomy because I don't want to get into a conversation with the subject matter expert about what Bloom's Taxonomy is. But generally, I'll say to them, you know, if you and it goes to your point Erica as well, it's current state versus future state. Okay, so if you really want them to do the thing, do you think that taking a test is going to help them do the thing? That's generally the question, and then they'll say something like, Yeah, but it'll prove that they know it does it. Does it. So we know that there are 1 billion 1000 people out there who have taken a driver's test. I'll leave it to you to tell me whether or not everyone on the highway knows how to drive right. And so then that's, that's Shannon's way of working, you know, a little bit of levity, a little bit of, you know, breaking down the barriers and saying, Okay, so now let's rethink. What does that really mean, you know? What does that mean in your world? You know? And I think helping the subject matter expert really understand the what is it that people need to know versus what is the nice to know stuff and getting them to focus on the need to know, which helps them then, in turn, get to the pain point, right? Because once we've uncovered that pain point, then it's okay. So what do we need people to do and change in order to take that pain point away? What does that look like to you? And when you put it in, when you use words like you, what does that mean to you? How will that solve your problem? How does you know then, then they are suddenly invested. So it's not like, well, how will this problem solve you know, how will this problem solve a business issue. Maybe they care about the business issue. Maybe they don't, but they do care about what they care about, and if you can get to the heart of the matter about what they care about, then it's more of that collaborative, empathetic positioning that is required now, like the you mentioned. So when I suggest a, you know, the Blooms Taxonomy graphic, the graphic aspect is usually something that's tailored to that area. And I'm calling it blooms. It's actually like I might call it skill levels or something, okay, something that relates to the SME. I love that picture and and we, and I can point to that and, like, talk to them, maybe like a pyramid or whatever, but to really help them see, like, hey, you've asked us to check for people down here, but what we've talked about, you said you actually want them doing this up here. So where do you really need them to be? And I like how you boil it down to the current state versus future state. And I think of like, I was working with a very, very smart data scientist as a SME once, and he really struggled with Don right? Yeah. Why he need? Like, why can't I just, like, word vomit, like, I'll just present everybody and they'll get it. I'm like, we had to really kind of talk through that. And one of the things that I like to do with those types of sneeze, I say, so you want them to be able to do this thing you've been doing for a while now, you've established this, whatever it is. How did you learn how to do that question? Good question. And so having them reverse engineer their own learning journey helps them go, oh, I it took me years of this, this and this to get here and like, because I sometimes I get requests that are like, turning people into something that does take years to get to. And they're like, how can we do one training class and get them there, right, right? And that's why I love that question so much. Is because you the you have a degree in XYZ. Or maybe you've worked for in 20 years in this particular field, you know, or you've been doing sales for, you know, your whole career, and you want me to put together 1e learning course that's suddenly going to make them experts. Do you see how those two things don't align? Right? And so I love that approach. That's that's a really smart approach. You know, Shannon, can I ask a follow up of Noel? Absolutely, because I totally, I totally dig that Noel,

Erica

35:31

what? What do you do then afterwards? So meaning, like, if you end up giving them an existential crisis because they just realized that what your intake was supposed to create was something that took them, you know, 10 years or formalized learning. Where, where do you then help so that it doesn't feel like, you know, Oh, holy crap, and now we can't do anything at all. Ah,

Shannon Tipton

35:57

yes, yeah. So when, when that type of a situation happens. I always use the the purpose of the request. Hopefully we've already established, like, why, where did this come from? And why do we want to do it? I use that as my true north. So what's the problem we're trying to solve overall with? So that data scientist, we he needed to be able to provide information so that we could train other teams and scale this analysis he was doing, and take and present that analysis out. So we, we, we said, Okay, well, why and, and what are those pieces that we can actually do with the teams that we have. So sometimes we have to admit, you know what you still are going to have, like this piece, it's going to take time, or we're going to have to come up with something else. So let's focus on what we can do that's achievable with the goal that we have. I love that. Yeah, and I so and I Elizabeth, thank you for that. We do have a lot of expert bias. Here we have, you know, a whole host of biases that come into play when we're dealing with subject matter experts, right? And the critical thing is try to push those biases away, right? Confirmation bias, right? Big one, you know where, and also people should care as much about the the subject matter expert struggles with this bias, which is where people should care as much about this topic as I do, right? And they don't understand that. That's a big hurdle for learning in particular, because while you may care about it 1,000% the person on the other end of the classroom may only care about it 10% you know. So now there's, there's another bridge that we have to build and help that subject matter expert understand that. And what I love about this particular conversation is keeping the subject matter expert with us on the ride toward the North Star, right? What is the goal that we are supposed to be achieving here? And part of the checklist is, you know, don't worry about filtering at the moment. And the way that I like to operate myself, personally, with subject matter experts, is, I just asked them, you know, in your opinion, in order to do the thing, what is required, and then you start building that list. Just build the list. It doesn't matter if he's said something that is so obscure that no one will ever get it, but just add it to the list. And then what you can do is we then just chunk down that list as the conversation keeps going along. And then at the very top of the whiteboard or flip chart page, is the goal, not the learning objective, but the goal. So the goal is that they should be able to, you know, turn the widget All right. So the goal appears to turn the widget. And here's everything else that you are mentioning as a subject matter expert. So now let's filter this. Let's do a little bit of filtering. So if we look at that list, what absolutely goes into a different bucket that doesn't support, you know, turning the widget. So this absolute, this message over here, this total, obscure fact, doesn't help people turn a widget. So let's put that over here, right now, right so then we can start filtering things down, and the conversation becomes a little. Bit easier, because you've let them express their knowledge at first, and then we're bringing them, you know, then we're fine tuning that conversation as we go along, right, and then hopefully they they become, they get on board with you, then they understand the process right? And I think my question, my question right now is, what are some of the other techniques that you might be using? So we've got Noel, and I love that you changed the language, so we're not calling it, we're calling it blooms in this audience. We're calling it something else in a different audience, which is always smart. You guys have heard me say this 1000 times, don't talk learning to your subject matter experts. They don't care. Only we care. So it's use language that they care about is the first step. So I love that. So what are some of the other what are some of the other tips then that you have, and you can jump off of the checklist, if you like, here as we go down it. So we we've talked about the first meeting, the kickoff. We're talking about content gathering. Now, one of the things that I see on the list is all about jargon. So how do we how do we break the jargon habit? So I'm would love to hear some of your experiences now, about some of your best tips, or even, what are some of your questions? So some of you who might be newer, and I didn't ask this question before, perhaps I should have, is you know our level of experience dealing with subject matter experts. So those of you who are newer on the continuum of dealing with subject matter experts, what are some of your questions?

Shannon Tipton

42:09

And I see with Jessica here in the chat, I struggle getting definitive answers, which doesn't help staying on track. So I will email questions and say something like, If I don't hear back by a certain day I will assume I do that too. I call that silent acquiescence. It's if you don't respond, I'm going to assume you're okay with what I wrote. So I love that a lot. Jessica, I use that technique myself. I also created a bricks that clicks. Oh, talk to me about that. Jessica.

Jessica

42:44

So we were, I work in higher ed, and we have a lot of instructors that we work with, and so when we're going through the process of working, let's say we're turning like a whole graduate program online to like an asynchronous course, they cannot grasp what a a quality asynchronous course can look like, and the activities or interactions that they can have with students. And so we kind of created a course on our own which takes them through an asynchronous learning experience, teaching them best practices, but also seeing what like the cadence of the course could look like, and how an asynchronous discussion can still do this, this or this. And you know, while they're doing that, they're learning about accessibility principles and, you know, best practices around a lot of different things. But then when I say, Okay, we need a engaging activity to start off, like your hook, what is? Then they're like, oh, yeah, you did this in your course. I remember going, so it's like a point of reference for them to kind of know what we're talking about. And it's actually worked really well.

Shannon Tipton

43:55

Brilliant. That's brilliant. I love that. I'm going to steal that as a matter of fact, yeah,

Jessica

44:05

this year, and we've gotten really positive feedback on it, I'm going

Shannon Tipton

44:09

to steal that with authority. Not only just deal it, but steal it with authority, because I think that's a wonderful idea, and I love that it is a self enrolled type of thing. So if you really want to learn more about the learning process and what it looks like, what we do, or how we do it, then I think that that's wonderful, especially if you send it to subject matter experts or those who might be trainers in the field or what have you you know, who are really curious about what you know, what learning really looks like. I think that's fabulous. I had a subject matter expert throw my own words back at me, which I love when that happens too, you know. So when we were talking about, you know, keep. Your Eye on the north star as we were working together. It was a group of subject matter experts and myself, we were working through this program, and one of them asked, well, would it be beneficial if we added it was a classroom experience, it was going to be over several days. And one of the core values of this organization is, you know, getting out in the community and doing community work. And so they've got several examples of what they've done for the community. And they were like, Well, should we incorporate a small little community involvement thing in the class, you know, to show that this is a value that we respect? And I, my response was, Well, I think that's a bad idea. I think, you know, maybe we can possibly look at that. And then somebody stood up and said, but does that help them do the thing? And I'm like, oh my god, somebody just said My word right back at me. And I'm like, Well, no, that doesn't help them do the thing. So maybe this becomes an evening activity where it's voluntary or something over lunch or what have you. But you're absolutely right. So I love it when they get it, you know, that's kind of an exciting moment, you know, when the subject matter expert comes on board with you, you know. So I love that you're doing that. Jessica, would anyone like to add to that? What else are you doing to help your subject matter experts out. So Andrew, I'm curious, now that you've got this project, does this give you any different ideas, or does it build on techniques that you already use?

Andrew

46:36

Like I couldn't have asked for this to be delivered in a more perfect time. I had my onboard conversation yesterday, and I yeah, I'm observing existing training, working with the subject matter expert, who's also the trainer, who also learned his job on the job. So all these things are just like, oh, this is awesome. I'm going to go back and listen to this again. So yes, I'm absolutely thinking how I can slot these things in and and work with them. And yes, so right now, it's needs assessment, and then leading to an initial high level design to get agreement, and potentially that'll be work going forward.

Shannon Tipton

47:21

Awesome. Well, fingers crossed for you. Thank you. Now, of course, it wouldn't, it would not be a coffee chat conversation if I didn't ask Jason a question.

Andrew

47:34

I already said something today,

Shannon Tipton

47:35

I'm going to ask you to actually build on that, because you're in a position where you've worked with your people for a long time, yes, you know, and I think that's a different animal, you know, than when you're coming in. And a lot of times in a in a training environment, you're dealing with different projects with different topics, and you're not always working with the same people all of the time, but if you're in a position like you are, where you've got sub regular subject matter experts that you're dealing with, and sometimes they're cooperative, and sometimes they are not, you know what, what Best Practice or piece of advice do you have? I It's

Elizabeth

48:20

tough

Jason

48:25

because I've been working with these people for five years now, so I think I put it in the chat. It's the long game of the relationship. So I respect their time and, you know, proving that they can trust the work that I do, and by showing them, okay, here, this is what you gave me. Here's what I'm producing. Does that fit what you want to say? A lot of it, I'm working on one right now where I'm about to send the script over to the this me, and I know I'm going to get some pushback on it, because the data dump she gave me was like 30 pages long, and I got it down to about 10, okay, and because it's eight audio script, I'm not gonna read 30 pages on an E learning when there's things on the screen that they can read along with and follow along. So Right? It is just and helping them understand that everything that they know doesn't have to go in that course. You know, it's the need to know versus the nice to know. And well, if they don't know this, what's what's the consequence if I don't tell them that it's, you know, x and y are 23 does it really matter,

Shannon Tipton

49:52

right? And I can imagine, if you're getting 30 pages of transcript and you're cutting it down to 10, yeah, there's going to be some pushback, because you're probably taking out some. Thing that she felt was very important on some level,

Jason

50:04

and it's, I'm taking a virtual or webinar that she's been doing for the last couple of months, and we're turning it into an online course. So I'm like, well, your stories are your conversation. That's not going to actually be effective in an online course. So,

Shannon Tipton

50:26

yeah, and that's, that's, that's, I think you said something though that's really important, which is about trust building. And so how, how does one do that? I mean, do you think that it is just, you know, over time, you build that, or are there actions that someone can take? I

Jason

50:50

don't remember who said it earlier, but, you know, I'm, I'm the first person in the company to have my title and being an actual person that's come up in L, D versus a subject matter expert that they turned into L and D person, right? So there was a lot of resistance when I came in, because I don't know their industry, I don't know engineering, I don't know landfill work. But it was okay, well, okay, let's work. Let's work on our first project together, and I'll show you what I can do. Show you why I've been doing this for nearly 20 years, and that's all I think you really can do. Just like, Okay, you want me. If you don't like my work, you don't like my work, but what can I do to make it? Make it work for you, right,

Shannon Tipton

51:41

right, right, and, and I appreciate that. And then there, there are just so many facets to working with subject matter experts in so many different scenarios that it's there's no one size fits all answer. I think it is where I'm trying to go with this, and my hope is that the checklist that I sent to you, or this bulleted list that I sent to you, will help you think about your interactions with the subject matter expert, regardless of how long you've been doing it. And I, like Jason, I've been doing this for a very long time, and you run across all sorts of different personalities, and I think that's the first thing to remember, isn't it, that they're people, first, subject matter experts, second, right? And so we've got to deal with the person and whatever baggage that they bring along to the conversation. And so in Jason's case, it may be that there was an initial distrust, because he's not from the industry, and because you've got that title, you know that led title attached to your name, right? Not somebody who was a a person turned to trainer, right? So there's, there's that you know, or maybe you replaced somebody that everybody liked you know. So there's that battle you know, and then there's the Battle of of you, maybe changing over departments. You're working with a different group of people now with different types of knowledge, or maybe your your expertise, does it match with their expertise? So there are so many ways that we come into the conversation, and I think it's just remembering that how we deal with people in general is going to help you deal with subject matter experts. So I think if there was one piece of advice that I could give that goes across every situation and scenario, is just to remember that your subject matter experts are people, and we need to support that person in their role. Now, yes, it's a give and take. I am definitely not saying that it's all on us, but it's mostly on us, because that is our job. It's not their job. Remember, that's not their day job, per se. You know, it's our day job. So we have to help bring them into the conversation to get the answers that we need right? And I think that's the important bit.

Jason

54:22

And I think Erica, Erica said in the thing that she stopped doing storyboards because it was causing more confusion. And I had to learn that lesson too, is they just couldn't. They became focused on the wrong thing in the storyboard, right? And so I just started, either just giving them, this is the wording, this is going to be the script, or started giving them a prototype course, that if I could, it's like, okay, here, here, we built this section. Do you like the look? You like the field? Do you like you know, and it's a lot of iterative work.

Shannon Tipton

54:56

Yep, I agree, and I do the same thing. I don't give people a full. On stuff. I give them as much as I can and take out parts that I know that are going to be controversial later. Just get them to focus on what it is you need them to focus on as you're going down. Well, right? Well, this has been an awesome conversation. I haven't heard anything about the use of technology. Oh, well. And William sent me this message about the use of technology to clean up and distill down or edit subject matter, provided information that's a whole conversation for a different day, if you want to, if you want to talk about technology, you know, to help you. And I think really the my if I were just to say one thing about the use of technology to bring your subject matter experts into the conversation, that's part of your kickoff conversation is to determine how everyone wants to be communicated with, and how. Now, depending on your organization learning rebels, we use Slack. And so when I get a new client, I usually set up a Slack channel for them, and from there is where I can send them pieces of information for them to look at as we're going through whatever it is that we're developing. Now, if you are using tools like storyline, there's obviously the review section, right? So use that review section, not only to get comments for specific areas, but to get comments to ask them about tone and verbiage and the environment, right? And to help bring that sort of conversation into it. Now, to help you distill like 30 pages of transcript, AI can be your best friend with that, you load that sucker up to chat GPT and ask it for a summary of points. You know, where you can ask, you can tell, chat. GPT, here's the audience. The audience here. This is a transcript from an expert electrician. I need to distill this down to people who only have one or two years in the industry. Provide me a summary with bullet points that will do that, and then you can get a top level summary of what that subject matter expert is trying to tell you, and then you can distill that into words that your subject matter expert is familiar with. And then you can have a come together, you know, to have that conversation. So a couple of pieces of technology to help you disseminate information and distill that down to where it's manageable for you. So there's a couple of pieces of advice that I can give you immediately, in regards to, you know, helping you with information. And I bounce between AI tools. I bounce between chat, GPT and Claude, in particular, you know, to help me with distillation as and also changing the vocabulary. So there's a lot of times where I'll take heavy tech transcript and ask the AI to turn that into vocabulary that layman people will understand, you know, and and then I describe what I mean by layman, a person with one year's worth of experience, or a person with a high school education, or a person with five years experience, and then it will distill that piece of information down into language that's understandable sometimes, not just for the learner, but for me, especially if it's if it's something that's going way over my head, you Know, because I don't always understand everything that I'm reading either, you know. So I think those are a couple of pieces of advice that I can give you right now. And so that is, that is our time. And in the chat, I put in there a link. So last year we did our Sunday sparks, if you remember that, those of you who are part of that text messaging campaign and that was helping you be inspired by new L and D items that were coming across the board, now we've done a new program. It's called Wednesday boosts. And Wednesday boost gives you a tool. So no inspirational stuff, just a quick tool here. Here's something to try, here's something to do. You know, here's a tool for you to explore. So our Wednesday booth will go on for the rest of this year, and every Wednesday you'll get a new tool to explore. And so there's the link to sign up for that, and you can get it via text message or through email if you are part of the learning rebels community that will also be posted there. So don't forget to sign up for the remainder of q2 so you can use the same zoom link that you registered for this one to sign up for. Additional coffee chats for the rest of this quarter. So a lot going on as always. I love all of our interactions. You guys are just fabulous. And I love having these conversations with you every other Friday. So for those of you who are new, yes, every other Friday. So not next Friday, the front not next Friday the Friday after to carry on this conversation. We're talking about, how do we build relationships with our stakeholders? So we're going from subject matter experts to stakeholders, which is an entirely different conversation, right? So I'm looking forward to that one. So I hope to see you guys in two weeks. I hope you all are going to have a great weekend. Anybody have anything fun plant or we got fake spring coming, so maybe get out and get some sunshine. Might be for for those of us in the gray Midwest, getting some sunshine would be nice. Anybody else doing anything you want to share?

Jason

01:01:06

No, nobody. No, no. Exciting things happening this weekend? No, not until the draft. Well, this, this is my, my one weekend. I'm not doing anything for the April is like something every weekend for

Shannon Tipton

01:01:20

me. Oh, so you're going to be a couch potato this weekend.

Jason

01:01:24

Yes, I'm going to do self care things this weekend. What's that?

Erica

01:01:27

Oh, good for you. My, my new April was like, hog wild. It's crazy. I don't know how that happened. I don't either. I

Shannon Tipton

01:01:39

can't believe we're already in April, I'm trying to figure out where the first four months with I still need to plan for my taxes. I haven't done that yet.

Andrew

01:01:48

Um, Shannon,

Erica

01:01:54

I know I have stopped recording. Shannon, stop recording.

Shannon Tipton

01:02:01

No. Josh, the podcast guy who's gonna be like, Oh, okay, but now I will pay my taxes. I am a good person for every every government person who's listening to me right now. Oh, and then the dogs also.

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